Patrick Cassidy (actor)
Encyclopedia
Patrick Cassidy is an American
actor best known for his roles in musical theatre
and television.
and Jack Cassidy
. His brothers are Ryan and Shaun Cassidy
, and his half-brother is David Cassidy
. He is also the uncle of Melrose Place
star Katie Cassidy
.
He is married to actress Melissa Hurley and is the father of two sons, Cole Patrick and Jack Gordon.
as a baseball
player in the minor league
s. The show was canceled after just four episodes. In 1986, he played a West Point cadet in Dress Gray (for which he received an Emmy Award
nomination) and appeared in the holiday TV movie Christmas Eve with Loretta Young
. He had a small but pivotal role in the Ryan O'Neal
gambling opus, Fever Pitch
.
In 1988, he starred in the television series Dirty Dancing
, based on the film. Two years later, he starred in Longtime Companion
about an actor battling AIDS
. In 1994, he appeared in the films I'll Do Anything
and How the West Was Fun
with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
.
In 1997, he had a recurring role on TV's Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
,and had another Superman
-related recurring role a few years later as the biological father of Lana Lang
in Smallville
.
He co-starred alongside his half-brother David
in a 2009 ABC Family
comedy series entitled Ruby & The Rockits created by his brother Shaun
. ABC Family announced on September 12, 2009 that the show had been canceled.
's The Pirates of Penzance
before taking over the role on Broadway
in 1982.
Cassidy's next Broadway role was Jeff Barry
in the Ellie Greenwich
jukebox musical
Leader of the Pack
. In 1990, he originated the role of The Balladeer in the original off-Broadway
production of Stephen Sondheim
's Assassins
at Playwrights Horizons
.
In 1993, Cassidy starred as Bobby opposite Carol Burnett
in a Los Angeles
production of Sondheim's musical Company
. In 1995, he portrayed John Wilkes Booth
in the Los Angeles Repertory staging of Assassins. In 1998, he was Macheath in an L.A. production of The Threepenny Opera
; he was nominated for the Garland Award for Best Actor for his work in the role. In 1999, he played the title character in a national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
. In 2000, Cassidy co-starred with Cheryl Ladd
in Annie Get Your Gun
on Broadway as Frank Butler. He later reprised his role of Frank Butler alongside Patti LuPone and George Hearn in a 2010 concert presentation at the Ravinia Festival in Illinios, directed by Lonny Price. In 2001 he played Radames in the national tour of the musical Aida
; he won the 2002 National Broadway Theatre Award for Best Actor in a Touring Musical before bringing the role to Broadway in 2002. In 2004-05 he was back on Broadway in 42nd Street
as Julian Marsh playing opposite his mother as Dorothy Brock.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor best known for his roles in musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
and television.
Personal life
Cassidy grew up in an Irish-American family. He is the son of Shirley JonesShirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...
and Jack Cassidy
Jack Cassidy
John Joseph Edward “Jack” Cassidy was an American actor of stage, film and screen.His frequent professional persona was that of an urbane, super-confident egotist with a dramatic flair, much in the manner of Broadway actor Frank Fay...
. His brothers are Ryan and Shaun Cassidy
Shaun Cassidy
Shaun Paul Cassidy is an American actor, singer, writer, and producer. He is the eldest son of Academy Award winning actress Shirley Jones, and the second son of Tony award-winning actor Jack Cassidy...
, and his half-brother is David Cassidy
David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy is an American actor, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his role as the character of Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical/sitcom The Partridge Family. He was one of pop culture's most celebrated teen idols, enjoying a successful pop career in the 1970s, and...
. He is also the uncle of Melrose Place
Melrose Place (2009 TV series)
Melrose Place is an American television series broadcast on The CW Television Network from September 8, 2009 to April 13, 2010. The fifth series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise, it is an updated version of the 1990s Fox prime time drama of the same name, featuring a group of young adults...
star Katie Cassidy
Katie Cassidy
Katherine Evelyn Anita "Katie" Cassidy is an American actress who has performed in The CW TV series Melrose Place, Supernatural, Harper's Island, and Gossip Girl, and on the films When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Taken, Monte Carlo, and has roles in the upcoming...
.
He is married to actress Melissa Hurley and is the father of two sons, Cole Patrick and Jack Gordon.
Career
He decided to enter his high school's drama program after breaking his collarbone while playing as the quarterback for his high school football team.Screen
His first starring television role was in 1981 in the cautionary NBC movie Angel Dusted. In 1983, he starred in Bay City BluesBay City Blues
Bay City Blues is an American comedy-drama series that aired on NBC from October 1983 to November 1983. The series stars Michael Nouri, Dennis Franz, and Pat Corley, and was created and produced by Steven Bochco.-Synopsis:...
as a baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
player in the minor league
Minor league
Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities. This term is used in North America with regard to several organizations competing in...
s. The show was canceled after just four episodes. In 1986, he played a West Point cadet in Dress Gray (for which he received an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
nomination) and appeared in the holiday TV movie Christmas Eve with Loretta Young
Loretta Young
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...
. He had a small but pivotal role in the Ryan O'Neal
Ryan O'Neal
Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal , better known as Ryan O'Neal, is an American actor best known for his appearances in the ABC nighttime soap opera Peyton Place and for his roles in such films as Paper Moon , Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon , A Bridge Too Far , and Love Story , for which he received...
gambling opus, Fever Pitch
Fever Pitch
Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life is the title of a 1992 autobiographical book by British author Nick Hornby. The book is the basis for two films: Fever Pitch was released in 1997, and Fever Pitch in 2005...
.
In 1988, he starred in the television series Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing (1988 TV series)
Dirty Dancing is a 1988 television series on the CBS network. It was based on the film Dirty Dancing but had none of the original cast or staff. It starred Patrick Cassidy as Johnny and Melora Hardin as Baby...
, based on the film. Two years later, he starred in Longtime Companion
Longtime Companion
Longtime Companion is a 1989 film with Bruce Davison, Campbell Scott, Patrick Cassidy, and Mary-Louise Parker. The first wide-release theatrical film to deal with the subject of AIDS, the film takes its title from the words The New York Times used to describe the surviving same-sex partner of...
about an actor battling AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
. In 1994, he appeared in the films I'll Do Anything
I'll Do Anything
I'll Do Anything is a 1994 American dramedy film written and directed by James L. Brooks. Its primary plot concerns a down-on-his-luck actor who suddenly finds himself the sole caretaker of his six-year-old daughter.-Synopsis:...
and How the West Was Fun
How the West Was Fun
-Synopsis:Twin girls Jessica and Susie live with their father, Steven in the city. They have a dream about somebody saying "This town ain't big enough for the 3 of us" and having a shootout but argue who makes their move first. One day, they receive a letter from their godmother Natty inviting...
with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen are American actresses and entrepreneurs.Both have appeared in television and films since infancy. Since then, they have continued their celebrity through numerous television programs, films, interviews, as well as commercial endorsements...
.
In 1997, he had a recurring role on TV's Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was a live-action American television series based on the Superman comic books...
,and had another Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
-related recurring role a few years later as the biological father of Lana Lang
Lana Lang
Lana Lang is a fictional supporting character in DC Comics' Superman series. Created by writer Bill Finger and artist John Sikela, the character first appears in Superboy #10...
in Smallville
Smallville (TV series)
Smallville is an American television series developed by writers/producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar based on the DC Comics character Superman, originally created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The television series was initially broadcast by The WB Television Network , premiering on October...
.
He co-starred alongside his half-brother David
David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy is an American actor, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his role as the character of Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical/sitcom The Partridge Family. He was one of pop culture's most celebrated teen idols, enjoying a successful pop career in the 1970s, and...
in a 2009 ABC Family
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
comedy series entitled Ruby & The Rockits created by his brother Shaun
Shaun Cassidy
Shaun Paul Cassidy is an American actor, singer, writer, and producer. He is the eldest son of Academy Award winning actress Shirley Jones, and the second son of Tony award-winning actor Jack Cassidy...
. ABC Family announced on September 12, 2009 that the show had been canceled.
Stage
Cassidy played Frederic in the 1981 national tour of Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
before taking over the role on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in 1982.
Cassidy's next Broadway role was Jeff Barry
Jeff Barry
Jeff Barry is an American pop music songwriter, singer, and record producer.-Early career:...
in the Ellie Greenwich
Ellie Greenwich
Eleanor Louise "Ellie" Greenwich was an American pop music singer, songwriter, and record producer. She wrote or co-wrote "Be My Baby", "Christmas ", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Leader of the Pack", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", and "River Deep, Mountain High", among many others...
jukebox musical
Jukebox musical
A jukebox musical is a stage or film musical that uses previously released popular songs as its musical score. Usually the songs have in common a connection with a particular popular musician or group — either because they were written by, or for, the artists in question, or were at least...
Leader of the Pack
Leader of the Pack (musical)
Leader of the Pack is a musical with liner notes by Anne Beatts and additional material by Jack Heifner, music by Ellie Greenwich, and lyrics by Greenwich, Jeff Barry, Phil Spector, George "Shadow" Morton, Jeff Kent, and Ellen Foley.-Background:...
. In 1990, he originated the role of The Balladeer in the original off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production of Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Sondheim
Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
's Assassins
Assassins (musical)
Assassins is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, based on an idea by Charles Gilbert, Jr. It uses the premise of a murderous carnival game to produce a revue-style portrayal of men and women who attempted to assassinate Presidents of the United States...
at Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons
Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work....
.
In 1993, Cassidy starred as Bobby opposite Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
in a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
production of Sondheim's musical Company
Company (musical)
Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
. In 1995, he portrayed John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. Booth was a member of the prominent 19th century Booth theatrical family from Maryland and, by the 1860s, was a well-known actor...
in the Los Angeles Repertory staging of Assassins. In 1998, he was Macheath in an L.A. production of The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
; he was nominated for the Garland Award for Best Actor for his work in the role. In 1999, he played the title character in a national tour of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
. In 2000, Cassidy co-starred with Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd
Cheryl Ladd is an American actress, singer and author. Ladd is best known for her role as Kris Munroe in the television series Charlie's Angels, hired amid a swirl of publicity prior to its second season in 1977 to replace the departing Farrah Fawcett-Majors...
in Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Get Your Gun (musical)
Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...
on Broadway as Frank Butler. He later reprised his role of Frank Butler alongside Patti LuPone and George Hearn in a 2010 concert presentation at the Ravinia Festival in Illinios, directed by Lonny Price. In 2001 he played Radames in the national tour of the musical Aida
Aida (musical)
Aida is a musical with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang, and produced by Walt Disney Theatrical....
; he won the 2002 National Broadway Theatre Award for Best Actor in a Touring Musical before bringing the role to Broadway in 2002. In 2004-05 he was back on Broadway in 42nd Street
42nd Street (musical)
42nd Street is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin, and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production, directed by an ailing Gower Champion and orchestrated by Philip J. Lang, won the Tony Award for Best Musical and became a long-running hit...
as Julian Marsh playing opposite his mother as Dorothy Brock.
External links
- Official Patrick Cassidy Website
- Interview with Cassidy
- Profile of Cassidy
- Ruby & The Rockits actor/character biography